Starbucks was packed but Jamie felt better just being there, smelling the familiar, Heavenly scent of the coffee she knew and loved so well. Jamie was positive there was some sort of highly addictive drug in Starbucks' coffee because she was hooked. She found a table while Tyler ordered the drinks.
By the time Tyler got the drinks and turned around to try to find Jamie in the crowd, Jamie was at a table in the back of the coffee shop sitting next to Aaron Abbots laughing and doing a damn good job of flirting in Tyler's opinion. What was Aaron doing talking to Jamie? Sure, he had been one of Aaron's best friends at one point in time, but after everything that had happened, Aaron should have known to leave Tyler's sister alone. She was off limits. Aaron was a player and would hurt any girl he was with. Tyler wouldn't let that happen to Jamie.
"Tyler, why didn't you tell me that Jamie was coming back into town?" Aaron asked as Tyler set the two drinks on the table and sat across from Jamie and Aaron.
"It was sort of sudden," Tyler said coldly.
"Aaron was just asking me if we all wanted to go to his party tonight," Jamie informed her brother. "Doesn't that sound like fun?" Jamie was smiling. She was smiling for real, not one of her fake smiles she tried to pass off as real. Tyler hadn't seen his sister smile like that in a long time. He couldn't ruin her happy moment.
"Yeah, it sounds great," he lied. Aaron had a spiteful look on his face as he smiled at Tyler. "We'll see you there," Tyler told Aaron, making sure Aaron realized that for now, he wanted to be alone with Jamie.
Aaron took the hint. "Good. I'll call you later with the details," Aaron told Jamie. He took her hand and kissed it lightly. She giggled and smiled her most flirtatious smile.
"Why didn't you tell me how cool Aaron had turned out?" Jamie asked her brother after Aaron had left. She was watching him from across the room.
"We have bigger things to talk about Jamie."
"Did you talk to Reid and Pogue?" Jamie asked him, the real smile fading back to the fake one Tyler knew all too well. He hated that this was killing Jamie. He hated that she didn't trust him enough to come to him when she needed someone to lean on.
"Yeah, and they told me everything. Jamie, why didn't you call and tell me? I could have been there for you."
"Tyler, you couldn't be there for me. And I don't blame you for that. Your life was here. You had Daddy, Caleb, Reid, Pogue, school, the covenant. You were needed here.
"My life was in Miami. I had my mom, my friends, my school, my boyfriend. Ipswich wasn't a part of my life anymore. It was my past. I made it that way. I was okay with it."
"But Jamie, I could have helped you. I could have talked you through all of that. I've been there before. It's scary and it's confusing and you shouldn't have had to deal with it alone," Tyler argued.
"But I did do it on my own, Tyler. I dealt with it all on my lonesome and I was okay. I was scared and confused at first, sure. I hated this secret my mom had kept from me.
"I was upset and mad and terrified. But I'm past all of that now. I'm okay with all of this. I think it's kind of cool actually," Jamie explained. "That's the way I am now Tyler. I'm sorry if it bothers you that I've changed some since I moved, but that's not going to change the fact that I am different than I was when I was thirteen. I've learned to get through things on my own."
"I'm just worried about you Jamie. You may have changed, but you're still my baby sister," Tyler told her. Tyler was looking at Jamie with a truly concerned look in his eyes. He was speaking so softly. She thought about how much of a contrast the Tyler sitting in front of her was to the Tyler everyone else usually saw. Most people saw Tyler as Reid's trusty sidekick. He wanted so badly to be a rebel like Reid. He got into fights and had the occasional beer. But that Tyler could sit in front of someone the way he was with Jamie at that moment was what made him stand apart from the Reids of the world. Tyler had a compassionate side that Reid would never have. When Tyler looked into Jamie's eyes, she saw a little boy who wanted to be just like his best friend, not a rogue teenager who was constantly getting in trouble with whichever authority figure he could manage to piss off at the moment.
Reid would open up to Jamie occasionally, but he would never have Tyler's compassion for people. He would never tell someone he loved them or missed them. Jamie figured it was because he so rarely heard those sentiments directed at him. His family seemed to be the definition of dysfunction. His parents hated one another, but were too ashamed to get a divorce. So, in private, they had separate bedrooms and fought constantly. In public they managed to ignore one another completely. As for Reid's sister, she was emancipated when she was sixteen and no one had heard a word from or about her since. They didn't know if she was in school, or married, or had kids, or even if she was alive. Really it was no wonder Reid was the way he was. He was just a product of his environment. Jamie loved him all the same, but he and Tyler really weren't as alike as people thought.
"That's the point Tyler. I'm not you're baby sister anymore. I grew up. I'm not the same quiet, shy, awkward, follow-orders-without-question kid I was when I left."
"I've noticed. I know you grew up. Everyone does. But you became a whole new person. I feel like I don't even know you anymore. What happened in Miami that made you so hard?"
"Tyler, I didn't have much when I moved to Miami. I love my mom, but she was undependable and I knew that just as well as everyone else did. People thought I was blind to the things she did, to what a horrible mom she was. I wasn't. I just accepted her for who she was. She was still my mom. I didn't have any friends there. I didn't even have any friends of my own here. Everyone I knew was a friend of yours who would have seen me the same way everyone else did had it not been for you; I would have been invisible to them. I changed because I had to. You had your life here. I wanted nothing more than to escape from here. I wanted to escape Ipswich and all of the hurt that came with it. I couldn't call you every time someone picked on me at school or a guy I liked didn't like me back. I learned to handle all of it on my own. I'm sorry that you're having trouble accepting that, but it's who I am now. I can only hope that you'll understand that eventually."